The Netherlands goes to the polls later today for another early election – only one parliament has run a full term in more than twenty years. This one was precipitated by the fall, in June, of the four-party coalition government headed by independent Dick Schoof, who remains in office as caretaker prime minister.
There’s not much to say about a Dutch election, because the process is very simple: it’s a single nationwide proportional ballot (D’Hondt) for 150 seats, with a threshold of 0.67%. Fifteen different parties won seats at the last election, in 2023, and it’ll be a similar number this time. The far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) may again top the poll but is unlikely to reach its previous tally of 23.5%; recent polls show five parties scoring between 10% and 20%.
So the tricky part is putting together a government. The experiment of giving the far right a leading role is unlikely to be repeated: the PVV has demonstrated what should have been obvious anyway, that it has little interest in actually governing and exists basically to make trouble. What’s required is for the other parties to take that lesson to heart and co-operate to form a stable government without it.
I remarked last week, in relation to One Nation, that in far-right parties “there’s only room for one führer.” The PVV is a striking example of that; its leader, Geert Wilders, is legally its only member, and its representatives follow his orders. The other main parties now promise that they won’t work with him, but they could have saved the country a lot of trouble if they’d made that resolution last time.
The other four parties polling in double figures are the centre-left Labor/Greens joint ticket, the right-liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), the left-liberal D66 and the centre-right Christian Democrats. Further back, but still with enough support to potentially be important players, are another three far-right parties and the far-left Socialists. New Social Contract, which participated in the last government with PVV, VVD and one of the other far-right parties, is languishing at the bottom of the table and may not make even the very low threshold.
VVD, which for several terms dominated Dutch politics, is now paying the price for cozying up to the far right, in much the way that Citizens did in Spain. Instead, voters who are sick of Wilders’s racism are shifting to Labor/Greens, D66 and the Christian Democrats; those three could possibly win a majority between them, or else be close enough to get over the line with help from a couple of minor parties.
Polls close at 7am tomorrow, eastern Australian summer time; it’s not a big country, so results are usually available soon after.
The World is Not Enough 
There’s an exit poll result and politicians are reacting to it like the real thing.
The exit poll is agreeing with the pre-election polls about some things but not others.
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The exit polls do have a very good record, and indeed this one turns out to be pretty much spot on, but first place is really close: D66 just 1,200 votes ahead, with 1.1% left to count.
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